JTLS, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2026, pp. 149-156.
Print ISSN: 3135-6788; Online ISSN: 3135-6796
Journal homepage: https://www.tlsjournal.com
DOI：https://doi.org/10.64058/jtls260102ecetw
East-Central European Travel Writing of the Romantic Period: From Theories of Travel to Embodied Experience
A Review of Romantyczni wojażerowie. Mickiewicza i Słowackiego listy z/o podróży [Romantic wanderers: Mickiewicz’s and Słowacki’s letters from/on travel] and Smak drogi. Podróże chorwackiego romantyzmu (1839–1860) [Taste of the road: Journeys of Croatian Romanticism (1839–1860)]
Tomasz Ewertowski
Abstract: This review examines two recent Polish contributions to travel writing studies, both focusing on Romantic-era authors from East-Central Europe. Krystyna Pieniążek-Marković’s Smak drogi. Podróże chorwackiego romantyzmu (1839–1860) analyzes Croatian travel accounts (1839–1860), emphasizing the multisensory, embodied experience of travel. Through close readings of writers such as Ivan Trnski, Matija Mažuranić, and Adolf Veber Tkalčević, she shows how journeys to Dalmatia, Bosnia, Italy, and the Plitvice Lakes served nation-building projects, often engaging with Orientalism and autoethnography while correcting Western misrepresentations of the region. Magdalena Bąk’s Romantyczni wojażerowie. Mickiewicza i Słowackiego listy z/o podróży focuses on the correspondence of Polish national poets Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki, reconstructing their personal theories of travel. Despite stylistic differences—Mickiewicz being more reserved in letters and Słowacki more performative—both poets privileged imagination and memory over direct sensory experience, treating travel as a philosophical and creative act. Pieniążek-Marković’s and Bąk’s books demonstrate that East-Central European travel writing offers distinctive perspectives: it is deeply shaped by political conditions such as foreign rule and exile, and it often produces more nuanced, locally informed representations than Western European counterparts. The authors’ use of sensory analysis, anthropological theory, and Romantic concepts like irony and imagination enriches the broader field, suggesting that travel writing studies can be revitalised by engaging with non-English-language traditions and lesser-known regional corpora.
Keywords: Pieniążek-Marković; Magdalena Bąk; Romantic travel writing; Nation-building; imaginative travel
Author Biography: Tomasz Ewertowski, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Shanghai International Studies University. Research Interests: travel writing studies, imagology, and comparative literature. E-mail: tewert@shisu.edu.cn.
Received: 29 Jun 2026 / Revised: 02 Aug 2026 / Accepted: 05 Sep 2026 / Published online: 15 Sep 2025 / Print published: 15 Dec 2026.
